Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 05Nov2011

It rained most of the day, but it looked like it was clearing up for the evening, and I don't get many chances to play there anymore, so I decided to take the chance. I was afraid that they wouldn't have even bothered to put out a stage for me, but was surprised to find that they'd built the big round stage over the fountain. This is a double win: the stage is great, and of course the fountain and its wall of white noise was necessarily turned off.

But the threat of rain and the unseasonable cold kept most people away, especially the young families with little kids. I do get lots of people in the dead of winter when it's even colder, but I guess people weren't expecting how cold it was, so although a lot of people came by, not very many stopped to sit and listen for a while.

I did have one little kid, three or four years old, whose mother kept telling me that he "loves the guitar". I tried to get him to come up and strum on mine but he was too shy. So I just played some songs for him but naturally, it chose that moment to start to rain. Finally having an audience, I didn't want to stop playing so since it was pretty light rain, I just kept going, even though it was making the ink run on my song sheets. Luckily, it didn't get any worse, and quit after 3 songs.

Anyway, I only made $28 since nobody really stopped for long, but I had a great time 'cuz I could hear myself really well with the fountain off and the mic working correctly, and I had a pretty constant stream of people slowing down on their way past for a few songs. I quit around 11:15, 'cuz I was just getting too cold to play, but while I was packing up, I gave a card to the friendly maintenance guy and asked him to call me anytime there was a no-show at any of the stages, and I could be there in 20 minutes. Maybe that'll bear some fruit in extra gigs this winter.

Keith at Irvine Spectrum -- 29Oct2011

My cold was a lot better, and I was looking forward to doing a Saturday night again, but it didn't go very well. For one thing, the stage was next to the loud main fountain again, so I couldn't hear myself.

And worse, the battery in the transmitter of my new wireless microphone was going dead. The fountain noise made me think that the sound wasn't really bad, it was just covered up, so it took me a long time to realize that the more and more muffled sound -- like when your ears won't pop it -- was only the mic, and not the guitar. I finally swapped the battery and it cleared right up. Hopefully, from now on I'll recognize that "need a new battery" sound.

But I played a lot of the night with terrible sound, and a terrible performance while I was distracted by it. Luckily, my brother, his wife, and a friend were there pretty early (while the sound wasn't so bad), and the last hour was OK after I found the problem. But I certainly wasn't connecting with the audience while the sound was so awful.

I had a pretty great Kids Party going early on, but the highlight of the night was when a mom encouraged her little daughter (7-ish) to get up and dance. She marched right up, spun around to face the audience, and started her dance, which was: feet planted, then right fist straight up with left hip shot out, and then left fist up and right hip out, back and forth like a pendulum. It was the Cutest. Thing. Ever. Her little bottom slamming back and forth and her little fists pumping up and down -- she had her Move, and she was stickin' to it. For the millionth time I wished I could operate a camera while I was playing guitar, but, sorry...

I didn't get to play "overtime" like usual, 'cuz the guys had to tear down the stage itself before they went home, so I got shut down at 10:15. I didn't sell any CDs at all, and only made $65, but I suppose with the bad sound and "short" time, I was lucky to get that much.